Short Skirts Risk Rape Comment Causes Controversy In UK
According to a British lawmaker, wearing short skirts puts women at risk of being raped. Richard Graham made the comment to a local newspaper today, and anti-rape activists are not happy that he’s putting the blame on the victim.
“A night out is about having fun without putting yourself at risk. If you are a young woman on her own trying to walk back home through a park early in the morning in a tight, short skirt and high shoes, and there’s a predator…if you are blind drunk wearing those clothes how able are you to get away?
Graham clarified his comments later in a blog post, saying that his comment “in no way intimates ANY excuse for predatory behavior.”
Graham said that his comment did not imply that a woman in a short skirt is “asking for it.” Instead, Graham said that he was trying to talk about risk management.
Graham said:
“Risk management is a million miles from saying anything like ‘she was asking for it … It’s not about the impact of your clothes on a potential predator in my view – it’s about whether the clothes you’re wearing make it harder to get away from a predator.”
What do you think about Graham’s comment? Do short skirts and high heels put women at risk of being raped?
Jo Wood, a trustee of Rape Crisis England and Wales, said that rape was not about clothes or how drunk a woman may be. Wood said that Graham’s comments put the blame on the victim instead of the predator.
Wood told Gulf News:
“These comments have set us back about 100 years. It doesn’t matter if you are off your face and lying naked on a bench — that man takes it upon himself to rape you. This should be about putting the blame back on perpetrators.”
What do you think of Richard Graham’s comments?